Rebooted Eagle 2nd November 2014

c Rich Bonsor

On Thursday the 31st of October a dark morph Booted Eagle was reported as having been seen over the village of Nettlebed in Oxfordshire and the next day it was seen over Remenham Hill some four miles south and just over the county border in neighbouring Berkshire.

The very few sightings of Booted Eagles in Britain have an unhappy history with the BOURC (British Ornithologists Union Records Committee) which decides which species are included on the British List and BBRC (British Birds Rarities Committee) which verifies the identification.To date none have been accepted as involving genuine vagrants.

The most contentious of these rejected records concerns an individual that was present in Ireland from March to August 1999 then moved across the Irish Sea to Orkney where it remained from October 1999 to February 2000. 

The reasons given by the BBRC for its rejection were as follows

Its abraded plumage suggested previous captivity

Its arrival in Ireland  was considered too early for a migrant from Africa

Its extended stay - the species winters in Africa and breeds in southern Europe

The long sea crossing involved in its moving from Ireland to Orkney

All these points are arguable, the last being nonsensical and many birders to this day feel it should have been accepted as a genuine vagrant to Britain and disagree with the joint verdict of the BOURC and BBRC.

Another record  of a dark morph bird that was seen and photographed at Cape Cornwall, St Just, on the 20th May this year (2024), on a day when over 500 Red Kites were seen migrating through Cornwall, might be a potential first for Britain. We will have to await the verdict from the BOURC and BBRC.

Booted Eagles are the smallest eagle to be found in Europe and northern populations are migratory spending the winter in sub Saharan Africa and migrating north to breed in Europe where it is widespread in Iberia and the European part of Russia with more scattered, smaller populations in France, eastern Europe and the Balkans. The European population is estimated by Birdlife International to be between 4000-9000 pairs with an estimated 2000-4000 of those in Spain. Their main prey is small and medium sized birds such as Starlings, Woodpigeons and Magpies although they will also prey on small mammals and lizards.

Anyway let us return to Friday when Mark (P) sent me a text

You not going searching for this eagle?

No. Going to wait and see how it goes. I replied

The Chilterns with its deep valleys and high escarpments is difficult terrain to adequately search and I held the view that  the eagle was obviously moving about so would be incredibly hard to pin down.It would owe more to luck than judgement on my part if I were to encounter it. 

Due to the interest in this latest sighting Sam Viles of Birdguides helpfully instigated a special Booted Eagle WhatsApp Group for anyone to join and liase with possible sightings, directions and questions.

I went to bed that night tired and aching from helping clear willow scrub from Shrike Meadow, one of my local Farmoor Reservoir's small reserves, and forgot all about the Booted Eagle

However my subconscious didn't.

Next morning I awoke early and sent a post to my pals on our twitching WhatsApp Group.

So do I spend the day sat on a hillside in The Chilterns not seeing a Booted Eagle? I enquired.

Andy responded that he and Rich were going for it. Graham said he might depending on further news

I knew I was just postponing the inevitable

I looked out of the bedroom window at a grey and gloomy November morning. A lie in would be so nice but I knew the twitching genie was out of the proverbial bottle once more.Remenham was only an hour's drive from my home and the familiar amalgam of anxiety and excitement had taken its customary grip.

I was up, dressed and out of the door by 7.00am and headed south across Oxfordshire.

I had a vague plan to meet Andy and Rich somewhere near Remenham.It seemed logical as this was where the eagle had last been seen yesterday so why not start my search there? The Oxfordshire countryside did its utmost to postpone the onset of the winter blues and put some joy into this greyest of days, the trees glowing with  continuous colour, forming corridors of yellow, ochre, rust and gold  through which I drove on rural roads, the verges transformed temporarily into fiery mosaics of already fallen leaves  

I passed through an awakening Henley, crossing the Thames here that marks the county boundary between Oxfordshire and Berkshire to follow a steep and rising road to Remenham Hill.The road eventually levelled out at an obvious summit, although I could see no birders cars despite the fact there was a convenient and large layby that would allow one to park and look across a considerable area of The Chilterns. It was an ideal vantage point with a wide grass verge on which to stand and scan beside a busy and potentially dangerous road

Why was no one here?

A message from Andy on  Sam's WhatsApp Group informed one and all that he and Rich were at nearby Aston, some two miles back towards Henley and with a good elevated view over a wide valley and its surrounding escarpments.I forsook Remenham and drove back north to join them

We stood here for half an hour and were joined by a few other birders responding to Andy's post.Of course there was no sign of any eagle but the Red Kites, that are prolific around here, were well into their routine of laconic cruising and loud whistling above the parkland and large gardens that were spread out below us. Every distant kite looked like a potential eagle - well of course they did but obviously they were not. A couple of Ravens flew across the valley, their black shiny bodies disappearing against a backdrop of dark conifers and only their regular croaking signifying their continued presence. Rose ringed Parakeets, never knowingly discrete, ripped the still air with their harsh excited shrieks as they flew high over our heads

Rich and Andy decided they wanted to get something to eat and refuel their car so left for Henley a mile or two down the road. I hung on with another two birders, all of us in agreement that it was probably going to be a long and more than likely unsuccesful day.I stared into a misty, mizzling distance, the ridges and trees blurring with the decreasing visibility.Tired from yesterday's exertions I was slipping into that morose half awake half asleep state of mind that comes as a consequence of getting up too early and the initial excitement and expectation fading rapidly as I stared at an eagle free sky.

Then everything changed

We learned via Sam's WhatsApp group that the eagle had been seen, the news bringing an instantaneous somersault of emotions and mild panic 

We were in with a chance

It was 0930 or thereabouts

And where was it?

Why of course it was at Remenham Hill!

I cursed myself for my lack of faith in my instincts.Why had I not followed my convictions and stayed there? Too late for recriminations now. The only thing to do was get back to Remenham as fast as humanly possible.Our cars were parked haphazardly  on a very narrow steep lane at Aston in front of various farm gates.First we had to reverse the cars in order to retrace our way back up the lane to the main road.It seemed to take an age to turn the cars and negotiate the long winding lane, praying that no car was coming the other way, for passing places were few and far between. 

As I drove I wondered what would the parking be like at Remenham now.Would the layby be full of birders cars? The answer was not quite, there was one space left and in I went.

My bins were already round my neck and there was no time for a scope.The priority was to see the eagle and I would view it more easily just with my bins. But where was it? Had it gone already?  The hedge on the opposite side of the road looked bulky and impenetrable but I could see several heads just about poking above it on the other side, looking at a group of low flying kites. How on earth did they get there?

The answer came as I watched a birder run across the road and in blind panic literally dive into a hole in the bottom of the hedge

It was the only way through. On hands and knees I followed, squirming through to find myself confronted by a line of legs and bodies constrained in a narrow gap between the hedge and a barbed wire fence guarding the field in front.Somehow I managed to stand upright in a crush of bodies and between two heads could just about see out to the field and some trees at the far side.

There was no time to gather myself before there came a shout. 

There it is!

It's with the kites 

It's low down flying between the two trees on the far side of the field.

It's the lowest bird someone else helpfully added. 

With bins raised I could see little as heads and bodies obscured any meaningful view. A gash of sky appeared between some heads and I saw several kites. I looked at the lowest bird. Was that it? 

No time to decide  as someone in front told me

It's gone behind the largest tree.

It was gone from view. Damn, so near and yet so far. Maybe I had seen it, probably not. Who was I kidding. I had seen several kites milling around and the lowest bird was presumably the eagle but how could I be sure with such a brief and restricted view.

This was hopeless.I decamped from the scrum and wriggled back through the hedge, crossed the busy road and joined half a dozen birders looking out and across to the trees from that side.They had seen the kite but they told me it had moved to the right and further down behind Rosehill Wood, a small area of mature trees, where it possibly had roosted overnight. Some crows were going mad in the treetops, flicking wings, craning necks and cawing anxiously.They could obviously see the eagle but we could not

We raced down the verge to get level with the wood thinking the kite might move further beyond. Andy was well ahead of me while I was about fifty metres beyond a large oak tree by the road and under which other birders were standing waiting and hoping for the eagle to re-appear.

The view from under the oak where I was shortly to see  the Booted Eagle flying above the trees in the middle distance.The edge of Rosehill Wood is on the right of  the picture

I was halted by a shout from the birders still under the oak tree

It's here !!!!!

I shouted to Andy and we hurtled back to join the birders under the oak. Everyone of them glued to cameras,scopes or bins and looking across the road

It's the lowest bird just above the trees, flying around with the kites Sam told me

A panic seized me at first as I could not get on it. I realised I was looking too far to the right.I had selected the wrong tree.I moved my view left and there it was.

Bingo!

At last!

You on it now? Sam enquired

Abso - bloody - lutely! 

Cheers

c Rich Bonsor

The eagle was buzzard sized, compact and looked superficially similar but with squarer wings and a longer tail, flying back and fore over the trees, gently circling. It looked chunkier than the larger, slimmer kites and appeared dark all over except for a distinct pale band of wing coverts on the upperside of each of its wings and pale uppertail coverts. When it flew towards us the celebrated 'landing lights'. a pale patch on the leading edge of each wing where it joins the body were just about visible. It was on view for around ten to fifteen minutes before dropping below the ridge, only to appear briefly further left before moving away northwards and becoming lost to view in my bins.

I ran to the car to get my scope and moved much further down the road, finding a small gap in the hedge to myself and scanned the sky to the north, the direction it had flown. I  picked up a pair of large birds  at great distance high in the sky having a tussle. I could see a corvid vigorously mobbing  another larger bird.Corvids do not bother with kites around here as they are so familiar with them.It had to be the eagle and the scope views confirmed its profile and shape.Constantly harassed by the corvid it moved ever further north and west. By now it had to be right over Henley which is in Oxfordshire.

Should I claim it for my Oxfordshire list?

Later I learnt other observers had seen it moving over the northern outskirts of Henley in the mid morning and it then moved further into Oxfordshire being seen late morning between  Lower and Middle Assendon. After that it was not seen for the rest of the day despite people searching all over The Chilterns.

I was surprised how relatively few birders took a chance to come and see the eagle first thing today. I estimate no more than fifty of us saw it. Of course once the news came out of it being sighted at Remenham many more birders arrived but they were too late. Quite a number of birders came to Rosehill Wood in the late afternoon anticipating it would return to roost there but there was no sign of it.

Surely this bird has every chance of being accepted and if so could possibly become the first accepted record of a genuine vagrant Booted Eagle in Britain, assuming the dark morph bird in Cornwall is rejected. Could they be the same bird? There is also a slim chance that there will be a change of opinion about the 1999 record from the BBRC, in light of this year's sightings in Cornwall, Oxfordshire and Berkshire.. 

I went back to Remenham the next day, Sunday, to meet Adrian who was driving from Essex and found many more people had made the effort to come and try to see  the eagle after the excitement of the day before.Matters became increasingly chaotic and slightly hair raising alongside the busy road as many more people than yesterday broached the hedge and upwards of seventy cars parked on the wide grass verge by the road.I stood under the familiar oak tree with some of my Oxonbirder chums but there was no sign of the eagle nor were there nearly as many kites as yesterday.

A Peregrine perched in the tree the eagle had flown over yesterday and a Sparrowhawk flew high over the road. Fieldfares and Redwings began to appear in the open sky above the autumnal trees but did not stop.

Someone later claimed a brief view of the eagle from the oak tree vantage point but no one else saw it and the general concensus suggested a misidentification of a dark Common Buzzard although the observer remained convinced he had seen the eagle.

I gave up at noon and headed for home.The eagle was not reported all day. 

I wonder where it is now?

Is it still in The Chilterns or has it moved on to be discovered somewhere else in Britain?

Maybe it has headed south to Africa although it was last seen going northwest.

This bird constitutes species 538 that I have seen in Great Britain

With my grateful thanks to Rich Bonsor who has kindly allowed me to use his images of the Booted Eagle for my blog as my camera is currently being repaired